Tag: mask

As mentioned previously on my blog, part of my job in terms of outreach for my department’s division is about energy conservation. I really wanted to do something that brings awareness to it. So, I started with doing a keyword search for background images that dealt with energy.

I wanted to create an image that could be used for the division’s website, social media and could also be inserted into our division newsletter that’s emailed and printed for distribution. After looking for a while and searching different variations related to energy, I stumbled upon a light bulb background and knew it was a good start to creating something with it.

I liked it because it had great use of the “Rule of Thirds” with the bulb on the left vertical line. That allowed opportunity for me to use the open space on the right-hand side for other elements. I also loved the darkness of the entire image so I could use the inverse (lighter) colors for text.

As for the three smaller pictures – I took those myself. I used a macro focus on all three and tried to use a neutral background to not take away from the object itself. Using one of the tips from one of our readings on digital photography composition, I adjusted the aperture to blur the background of the photo. While it was all neutral backgrounds, I really wanted the objects to be in focus because I knew how I was going to use them.

Working on the Gestalt Theory of proximity – I grouped all three photos together on the right-hand side of the canvas. I had the idea to spread them out but it just looked cleaner and they grouped well together with them lined up. Then the text next to them would line up better as well, looking like a list format instead of just haphazardly placed on the canvas.

From the Layer Masks Photoshop tutorial, I used it to make the three perfectly square boxes to insert the three images in them. I even used the “group layers” option and then duplicated the group to make it much easier and faster to create the three photo boxes.

In terms of the title, it just worked out to put it on the bottom. I had all this space with the background image and with the placement of the light bulb it seemed to make aesthetically more sense to place on the bottom instead of the top. I used a ruler guide (again, from what I learned from the Layer Masks tutorial) so that I could snap a perfect rectangle on the bottom to create a filled box with a lot of opacity. That rule tip really came in hand for this one.

That was pretty much it for the project. Simple and straightforward – in my experience with outreach, it’s the best way to the get a message across.